India should protect Husain: Rushdie

Author Sir Salman Rushdie took the Indian government to task for not acting positively in the MF Husain case and said modern India was giving itself up to extremism, both Hindu and Muslim, and narrow sectarian thinking which was inimical to Gandhi's ideals. "This is increasing at a phenomenal rat

Author Sir Salman Rushdie took the Indian government to task for not acting positively in the MF Husain case and said modern India was giving itself up to extremism, both Hindu and Muslim, and narrow sectarian thinking which was inimical to Gandhi's ideals. "This is increasing at a phenomenal rate lately," he added.

Delivering the keynote address on the first day of the India Today Conclave in New Delhi on Friday, Rushdie said, "Freedom is not a tea party. It has to be strongly argued. Disagreement with whoever wants to stifle your freedom has to be strongly fought. You have to shout at the frontier to protect your borders."

Rushdie, in his first comment on the Husain affair, said it was indeed sad that India was showing its closed mind."Tolerance is not an alien idea to us, Indians. If I am not allowed to write, I would rather not write."

He said it was strange that that the Indian government was allowing this to happen to Husain. "Britain helped me in 1989 though I was not a supporter of the party in power. That is what I would call a principled stand. Surrender in such cases only multiplies the problem. Politicians sadly need to develop the backbone which they lack. Even the media in India should say enough is enough."

"Husain's plight is a distress. It is scurrilous, shameful. He is a loss to India. And ugliest is the language being used against him. He is even being jeered at for being old. This is a proud face of a philistine India."

"There is nothing wrong in not liking his art. You can easily opt out. A painting is a finite space of art. If it offends, don't enter that space. The best way to avoid getting offended is to shut a book. I think that option is clear. The worst thing is that artists are soft targets...we do not have armies portecting us."

"Violence and its ugly sisters, both Hindu and Islamic, have to be resisted. They must be rebuffed. To appease it is the best way to ensure their growth. I am afraid India is gloing that way."

Saying that the Indian government's stand was "inadequate," Rushdie said that this responsibility was now extending to the entire society as well. "The Indian government is weak...it should publicly display Husain's paintings. If we are not doing so, then we are not following Gandhi's vision."

Rushdie said that he was amazed at the way some sections were taking on people like Shah Rukh Khan, Sachin Tendulkar and "even ban a proposed film on Nehru (Indian Summer which was not made last year after the Indian government apparently asked for changes in the script). Then we have the sad case of writer Taslima Nasreen...this is not the India I would like to see. India is everywhere now. 3 Idiots is on 42nd Street. Rahman is in Hollywood. It's a great feeling. Indian artists are carving out space everywhere."

Calling it a "culture of complaint" which was not unique to India earlier, Rushdie said that the proponents of this culture were bent on defying themselves "against whatever offended them...that is in the heart of Husain's crisis. In matters of culture, the mob rules. That is the tragedy."

"My case cannot be a parallel. People opposed to The Satanic Verses in 1989 have changed their stand since then," he said. Aroon Purie's introductory Speech for Rushdie | Spl: India Today Conclave 2010

Rushdie said art was never seen as a vocation like medicine and law by the general public. "We are not taken as serious people, and even nudes are treated as foreign culture. That is absurd. We need a better understanding of art and artists."

Rushdie ended by quoting from Rabindranath Tagore's Where the Mind is Without Fear, standing up to exit with "...lead my country awake."

Talking about Pakistan, Rushdie said, "It is a curious bird. Two wings and no body. It was insufficiently imagined. It reinforces that religion is not sticky enough glue to keep a nation on ground. The religious parties in Pakistan don't even get one per cent of the votes. The people want democracy. The country is in a mess."

Asked about his famous fan following among young women and the secret behind it, Rushdie quipped, "The use of narcotics. I basically drug them and take them to the room."

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